


The Girlfriend Mixtapes

by TheSubtextMachine



Series: Beecharmer 'verse [2]
Category: Lady Bird (2017)
Genre: Break Up, Christine is a History Major you can't change my mind, Coming Out, Coming of Age, F/F, Gen, college fun, playlists in every chapter!!!, she is just one of my favorite characters to write don't @ me, the long awaited sequel to Beecharmer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2019-07-03 01:51:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15808911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSubtextMachine/pseuds/TheSubtextMachine
Summary: 5 girls that Christine "Lady Bird" McPherson dates.AKA the sequel to Beecharmer, and the college escapades of our favorite disaster lesbian.





	1. act 1

**Author's Note:**

> Nora's Mixtape:  
> Youth Decay//Sleater-Kinney  
> Goth Babe//Surf Curse  
> American Beauty//Girlpool  
> Kiss Me Deadly//Lita Ford  
> In Bloom//Neck Deep

A couple of months after her sidewalk revelation, Christine finds herself walking down the windy New York streets again.

Now, as her combat boots hit the pavement with a new certainty, a couple things have changed.

First, she’s gotten used to her first name, even if it still makes her head hurt when she thinks about it too much. Just because Lady Bird felt a smidge more honest, doesn’t mean that it’s something she’s going to take to her new life, and that’s fine. Absolutely fine. No problem at all.

The second new thing is that she’s said the words “I am a lesbian” out loud. She’s said it to the mirror, to her friends over lunch, to the kind eyed bartender at the gay bar she was too nervous to drink at. She hasn’t said it to her mom, or anyone she knew in Sacramento. She had also said it to some cute girls in her classes, but those connections usually never went anywhere.

The third new thing was that her face is now covered in makeup for Renee’s birthday party. Renee was one of her friends from Intro to American Literature, and had spent the last couple of weeks organizing her own birthday party at her favorite hole in the wall bar. Apparently, a band was showing that night, and one of Renee’s friends of friends of friends were adamant that she see them.

The fourth new thing was the fact that she’s now holding a bundle of pink balloons in her hand, ready to be gifted at any moment. Christine may honestly be more excited about gifting the balloons than actually seeing what was bound to be some shitty band. She’s envisioning the excited expression that Renee would have on her face: her dark brown eyes would light up like lanterns in a night sky, and her smile would break out in that heart-lifting way it always did.

(Christine might have a tiny crush on Renee, but that’s neither here nor there.)

So, with this New Christine in New York City, she marches down the sidewalk, ignoring the occasional glance thrown her way at the girl in boots holding balloons.

-

Life is looking up, and that doesn’t change when she shoulders her way into Renee’s favorite bar, blocking out the clatter of noises and instead scanning the cramped, gritty area for her favorite project partner, with her classic flaming orange hair and slightly ill advised blue lipstick. She’s fairly easy to find, and she spots Christine with an ease that makes Christine’s eyes crinkle with her smile.

She leads with her hand towards the table that Renee commandeered for all of them. She spots another kid from her American Lit who’s name she cannot remember for the life of her, so she just smiles shyly and hands her balloons to Renee.

“So, what’s this band that you’re so crazy about?” asks the Mystery Man From American Lit, and Renee visibly perks up.

“The City Slickers! I saw them at an open mic a month or two ago, and I’ve been keeping tabs on them since. I’m actually friends with their drummer, so you guys basically have backstage passes. Not to mention that the drummer is very cute, so if either of you are willing to wingman for me, that would be fanta-” Renee is caught off guard by the entrance of the band that she speaks of, and she quickly waves them over to the table.

“Hey guys! This is Christine and Kien, from my American Lit class,” Renee starts, and she keeps going, but Christine is admittedly distracted by the joy of finally figuring out Mystery Man’s name.

This train of thought itself gets interrupted by a very pretty girl thrusting her hand in Christine’s space, her close-mouthed smile dangerous and her hair in a pixie cut.

“Christine, right?” she asks, and Christine takes her (notably soft for someone who plays instruments) hand, and nods.

“And you are? I’m sorry, I’m bad with names.”

“Nora. Lead singer and notorious lesbian.”

“Looks like we have something in common,” says Christine, and she knows that both of them are definitely laying it on thick, but Christine was never known for her subtlety. She can smell the faint aroma of lemon soap on her, and that seems to mentally seal the deal for her, as nonsensical and irrelevant as that is.

“So, Christine, where do you go to school?” Nora asks, and Christine takes a moment to follow the curve of her smudged, winged eyeliner.

“Newbury. Undeclared major, naturally. You?”

“I go to NYU. And if we’re talking majors, I’m doing music. That’s actually how we got this band together,” says Nora, the slight shine of her chapstick clear in the dimmed lights of the bar. There’s a black tattoo of a snake on her wrist, and Christine feels bravery rush through her.

“Want to continue this conversation after this party? I know a good coffee shop that’s open at night,” says Christine, willing any stutter or tremor out of her voice.

“Sounds like a plan. Meet me after the show.”

-

Nora’s band isn’t that good, but she occasionally winks into Christine’s direction, which makes her stomach jump in a fun way, so she enjoys herself. Renee has even more fun, judging by the way that she pulls Christine on the makeshift dance floor, where they jump along with the drums and twirl each other around. It’s the simple kind of platonic love that makes Christine a bit dizzy with affection, but her romantic attentions are turned to the available, flirty Nora instead of kind, caring Renee. 

Christine may still have the tiniest, most nonconsequential crush, but now she’s a woman on a mission. 

The band sings Happy Birthday, complete with some nonsensical guitar riffs and people banging on tables for emphasis, and then the show is over. In the midst of cheering and babbling amongst the crowd, Nora hops down from the stage and wiggles through the mass of people to find Christine.

“Hey! I’m gonna clean up backstage. Where do you want to meet?”

Christin looks around at the people moving about, and figures that she needs a breath of fresh air outside of the musty club.

“Wanna meet outside?” she asks, and Nora nods, opening her mouth, before she’s cut off by a hand around her arm, pulling her back into the indistinct crowd, leaving Christine standing in a clearing, surrounded by strangers and acquaintances. She hears the tinkle of a familiar laugh, and becomes quietly overwhelmed.

All the sudden, it’s a bit too hot, and a bit too loud, and she’s afraid of herself, afraid that she’ll somehow fuck this up too. Her nerves may have already been a bit frayed by the phone call she got from her dad, and it feels like everything’s catching up to her under the unforgiving fog of this bar. She ducks through people, making a beeline to the door, and steps out.

She realizes a second too late that it’s raining outside, and raindrops fall on her shoulders, dampening her shirt, making it clingy and cold. She falls back to rest on the brick wall, trying to crowd under the awning. 

People begin to stream out, and she recognizes a few of the partygoers, but she’s started to shiver and is getting the off urge to just go home. Renee rushes out of the bar, holding the hand of someone that Christine doesn’t know, and Renee doesn’t even spare her a glance. 

She’s hurting, and it feels like it came from nowhere. She’s cold and Renee doesn’t care about her in the same way and Nora has gone missing, apparently, because the flow of people leaving the building has thinned down to almost nothing.

She puts a hand to her forehead, not knowing why, and it’s warmer than she expected. This small inconvenience throws her mind into a tailspin, and it’s only interrupted by the shock of a warm hand on her drenched shoulders.

“You doing okay?” asks a warm, honeyed voice. Christine’s head whips around to see someone from Nora’s band, a girl with half-shaved hair and a slight gap in her teeth.

“Not really. Waiting for Nora.”

“What’s wrong?” the stranger asks, and Christine has to fight tears.

“It’s really cold and my dad called today, and everything’s catching up to me. Is Nora going to stand me up, or something?” Christine rambles, fighting a shiver. 

“I doubt that. She’s taking a phone call right now, and it’s sounding pretty tense. What’s your name?”

“Christine. You?”

“Simone. I’m the drummer, in case you didn’t recognize me.”

“Wait, you’re the drummer of the City Slickers? Because if so, my friend has the biggest crush on you,” Christine says through a shiver, her own arms held around her, receiving a pitiful glance from the just as cold Simone.

“Which one? I’ve met a lot of your friends,” Simone says.

“Renee.”

It only hits Christine that this is sensitive information when Simone’s nose wrinkles up, and they both lean against the wall again in sync. Only a moment later, Simone’s expression smoothes out, like she’s considering the possibility, and then they’re looking at each other again.

“Renee’s cute, I suppose. Never thought she had a crush on me, though,” Simone says thoughtfully.

“Why not?”

“Not much of a flirter. At least, not with me. Well, I guess you learn something new every day,” she says, and Christine opens her mouth to add in her own two cents when she’s interrupted by the dramatic flinging open of the door, where Nora emerges like Aphrodite from her shell. Her hair is tousled and still a bit slick with sweat, and Christine’s attention is effectively drawn.

“Christine!” she exclaims, spotting her quickly. Nora doesn’t seem to even notice Simone, she’s too relieved by the fact that Christine stayed despite the cold and the rain. Her eyes catch Simone, and her hand flies to her shoulder as she begins to babble profuse apologies and thanksgivings.

“So, Nora, how about that coffee?” Christine says, and her voice is more wrecked than she wants it to be, but she covers it up with a smile.

“I’d love that,” Nora says, lips curving into a tired smile that seems to perfectly complement her downturned eyes. Christine has another moment of “oh my god, I am _such_ a lesbian”, because she gets the absurd urge to let her fingers trace the line of her cheekbone, causing her head to duck to hide the blush that had begun to bloom.

“Okay, run along kids. Don’t get into too much trouble,” Simone says, ruffling Nora’s short hair before pulling an umbrella out of her purse and launching herself into the storming city.

This leaves Nora and Christine, looking into each other’s eyes across from each other, waiting for the other to make the first move.

-

Storms rage above and around them, but the cafe is warm. Nora is colder than anyone else, judging by the way that she keeps her hands as tight around her hot coffee (to which she added an inhuman amount of sugar, until Christine was shocked that the mixture hadn’t just turned into a saccharine sludge), as if she’s drawing all her warmth from it.

The conversation is stilted, awkward. There’s a fair bit of conversation about the weather itself, followed by a weighty silence. After that, a stretch of conversation about majors and universities, and the struggles of degrees in the arts and such. Nora gets launched on a long rant about how her mom doesn’t take her seriously, and she freezes up a bit when Christine asks quietly about her father.

“Well, I haven’t seen him in a while. Why?” she asks, and her voice is a bit broken, and Christine knows that something is hidden beneath it, and she begins to panic, wishing that the mood hadn’t been shaken this badly. Nonetheless, she tries to find an appropriate answer.

“Just curious. You never seemed to mention him so I just… I’m pretty close with my dad, so I guess I just wondered…” Christine trails off, her hand coming to her eye in embarrassment, before realizing a second too late that she smudged her careful eyeliner.

“Wow, I really, uh, harshed that mellow. Sorry about that,” Nora says, her tone too blunt in the orange-ish light of the coffeehouse.

“Don’t worry about it! I harsh so many mellows, I’m used to it!” says Christine, her voice awkward, laughing and trying to get Nora to join in. 

Eventually, she laughs along with her, and it dwindles off after a couple of long, gorgeous moments.

“Christine. Do ya wanna know something?” Nora asks, still smiling and her voice high and drowsy with the late hour and the tired smell of coffee.

“I do. What can you teach me?” Christine asks in turn, tone dropped and flirty as she took a sly sip of her own drink.

“You have the prettiest eyes I’ve ever seen.”

They share a glance, and Christine starts her first relationship with another sip of her drink and a long, dragging look on Nora’s lips, coated with chapstick.

-

The thing, Christine realizes, about telling everyone that you are going on dates with someone, is that she constantly has to balance her excitement and need to tell everyone and the gross reality of homophobia. She can definitely spill the beans to Renee and some of the other hip kids in her friend group, but everywhere else is suspect.

Of course, she can’t talk about it with her family, because even the cool members of her family also happen to be talkatives members of her family. She doesn’t want to deal with a Sacramento Problem, so she says nothing in her phone calls or letters.

The other issue is that Christine is never totally sure what/where/who is totally safe. Can she hold hands with Nora when they’re walking together to the drugstore? Can she talk about it without someone overhearing and making something awful of it? 

She’s certainly dealt with her fair share of homophobia in Catholic school, but it was always something abstract, based entirely on assumptions and faraway ideas that were too real for a liminal space like Sacramento.

This, however, feels dangerously real. There were no more pretenses, there was no veneer of plausible deniability anymore. She’s going on dates with a real girl who likes other girls, sometimes ending in kisses against dorm room doors.

Christine starts taking stock of the smallest indicators from everyone in her life after she and Nora start dating. Her literature professor making a snide comment about Oscar Wilde, a study buddy throwing around a homophobic slur, her mom calling Danny a “fairy” on a phone call are all items on her growing list of “reasons I can’t tell most people I’m a lesbian”. 

The list of people who she’s safe with is worryingly short, mostly consisting of her closest friends and people in her far-from-school extracurriculars. In fact, her pottery class knows two whole facts about Christine: she’s gay and is awful at pottery. 

She’s got enough gay friends to know that it’s only a matter of time before the news travels, but as far as she knows, she’s just going to stew in the stressful safety of still being in the closet from most people.

-

Christine is living safely in the honeymoon zone with Nora, until she sniffs out the first sign of trouble while they’re having a night on the town.

Nora is a vision, with her warm brown eyes that sparkle beneath the lights of the city and the leather jacket that Christine cannot wait to borrow. It should be a perfect night, going from club to club to a candy-colored reprieve at some 24 hour cafe followed by another club. The only thing that’s messing it all up is the fact that Nora is holding onto something, something that she refuses to acknowledge or talk about.

Christine, despite what her mom says, isn’t dumb. She knows that Nora is agitated, and that the repeated “breaks” she take all end with her screaming into the phone of the phonebooth. Nora won’t tell her who’s she keeps calling, because it “doesn’t matter”, but Christine knows quite plainly that it does matter.

It even gets to the point where Nora leaves Christine alone inside a dance club, victim to the loud noises and completely unaccompanied. She’s too sober and too anxious for it, and Nora is nowhere to be seen. Christine has to huddle in the bathroom, splashing water on her face, not caring whether or not it ruins her makeup.

She gives herself one long, hard look in the mirror, at her bloodshot eyes and the way that her lips have begun to chap.

“Fuck this,” she says to her own reflection in the dirty mirror, and she feels like she’s half-alive as she shoves her way through the neon lit club, against sweaty shoulders and worn t-shirt cotton. She has the beginnings of a headache, and she wonders for a second if she’s far gone enough for Nora to tolerate this.

The answer is a soft _yes, but to a point_ , and she continues her trek through the mass of people, moving to the ringing songs of live rock. When she finally breaks through, out into the cool bath of air, she sees Nora, barely lit in the phonebooth. Christine walks up to it, elbowing a few pedestrians on her way across the busy sidewalk, and she tosses three assertive knocks to the cloudy window. 

Nora speaks into the receiver for a second, before putting the phone down to yell an unrepentant “what?” through the glass. 

“I’m going home!” Christine yells, wishing that Nora would just open the goddamn door, but Christine certainly isn’t going to open it for her.

“Alone?” Nora asks, and Christine finds her wounded ego soothed by how worried Nora is at that prospect. 

“I’ll call a taxi,” she says, and Nora calms down quickly, and begins to visibly fight the urge to return to the phone call. That much is clear, despite the reigning nighttime above and the wasted glare of the plastic window between them.

“Can you afford it?”

“Yeah, I didn’t buy food at the clubs so I’m still stacked,” she says, and her stomach rumbles as if to prove the point. She’s definitely going to lift from Renee’s care package the minute she gets back to the dorms.

“Cool, cool.”

Christine begins to leave, and with a visible sigh, Nora returns to the phone call, before Christine turns back again, halfway through the action of pulling a scarf from her purse.

“And Nora?” she says, loud enough that Nora gets the cue, and decides to finally open the door. The image is almost comical, with the way the phone is pulled out as far as it can go, the wire stretched as Nora puts her head out of the booth.

“Don’t go on another date with me until you work that out,” Christine yells, and the night feels less empty than normal. Nora smiles, close-lipped and photogenic beneath the streetlight. Christine turns on her heel, and walks down the street to pick up her taxi.

-

It seems like Nora figures it out, because everything is rosy and honeyed when they waste more time together next weekend, playing frisbee (conveniently stolen from one of Nora’s friends) at Central Park. 

It’s kind of the perfect date, since it’s unseasonably sunny and they don’t have to talk much, they can just laugh and yell little things across the field. 

Nora’s hair is newly dyed, bright and turquoise beneath the sun, and things feel oddly different, but still nice. It’s like being in another dimension, Christine thinks, where everything is just a little bit skewed. Nonetheless, everything is okay, in a kind, soft way.

Christine drops her girlfriend off at the dorm of her door, kisses her sweetly, and hopes that she’ll get accustomed to this slight shift.

-

The change makes sense when the next day, when Christine knocks at Nora’s dorm room door, holding a binder that Nora had left with her. She hears no response, and knocks again. 

Christine starts humming a song to herself, some old musical number that Renee had her listen to before class began. Renee had, it seemed, started to make a hobby of distracting Christine right before classes and outings with Nora. 

(Ever since Renee’s relationship with Simone fizzled out, accompanied with a vague “I liked someone else more, and I didn’t want her to be second place or anything”, Renee had more time and energy to spend on Christine.)

She knocks again, bobbing her head a bit and waving to one of Nora’s hallmates as he strolls down the hall, backpack on one shoulder and violin rested awkwardly on the other.

Christine knocks a final third time, before trying for the doorknob. She figures that if it’s unlocked, she can just drop it off and run back to her own school so she can join her American History friends when they gatecrash the party going on next door, instead of wasting the night working her way through public transportation at the time of day where every single person was coming home from work.

It’s unlocked, it slides as easily as a rusty dorm room doorknob could twist. Christine pushes, still humming the jazz number that Renee is so obsessed with.

She takes in the scene slice by slice, from right to left: messy desk with a stack of wrinkled sheet music, then a beer can on the floor, a side table with a pair of glasses that Nora didn’t own, and then Nora, on one side of the bed, with a space between her and a thoroughly spooked girl on the other side, with kiss-bitten lips and confusion in her watery eyes.

“It’s not what you think,” Nora says, too fast and too shaky.

Christine is in shock. She feels like a ghost, like she’s only halfway in the room.

“Who are you?” she asks, taking in the face of the girl that Nora was probably just in the middle of making out with. She’s got dark, messy hair and blue eyeshadow.

“I’m, uhh, I’m-”

“My ex. She is, um, my ex, and we were talking,” Nora covered, visibly trying to tamper down an inevitable stammer. 

“What’s your name? Christine asks, faintly and dazed.

“Harriet. Harriet Kennig, if you want my full name, I guess,” she says, and she looks so guilty and anxious that Christine can only blink slowly and watch her first real relationship dissolve before her eyes.

Her gaze flickers to Nora, and her turquoise hair, then back to Harriet. She remembers why she came here, and holds up the thick, heavy binder.

“I brought your binder.”

She tosses it to land on the bed, but it misses the landing and flops onto the floor, making a dull crashing sounds that makes all three of them flinch.

“Christine, please-” Nora begins, strained and harsh.

“Bye, Nora.”

She leaves, feeling like she’s not even totally there.

-

Christine floats through the streets, catching a subway and coming home (she doesn’t know when she started calling her school “home”). Her eyes must look like saucers, and she kind of wakes up later, when she opens her own door, taking in _her_ life, slice by slice, until she lands on her roommate, reading from her engineering textbook.

“Kendall?” Christine asks, and they don’t really have a relationship of any kind, it’s a bit awkward for her to be the first one to hear this, but she’s too shaken to examine the logistics of this situation.

“Yeah?” Kendal asks, looking up and pushing her glasses up her nose, concerned and confused.

“Nora cheated on me.”

Kendall, with her big circle-glasses and constant late-night phone calls from her high school boyfriend, doesn’t really know what to do. She just looks at Christine with her moon eyes, and blinks.

“Wow. What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Kevin from American History wanted me to tell you that you could meet them at what he called the ‘Super Secret Spot’. He said you’d know what he was talking about.”

Christine smiles, because she knows what he’s talking about. They’ve found the perfect spot behind the Science building, where the gates to the alley behind it are unlocked. It’s secluded, with reasonable temperature balance, and they can smoke weed without anyone sniffing it out.

“Yeah. Do you think they’re still there?” she asks.

“If there’s anything I know about your friends, they don’t like moving. One time, Travis sat in an upside down pretzel on your bed because he didn’t want to move. There was no one but me in the room.”

“I love my friends,” Christine says, in a muted epiphany.

“The go hang out with them, dumbass.”

-

Christine goes to join them, and breaks the news. She gets a lifetime’s worth of warm hugs, and gets to cry out her shakiness until reality can truly set in. She shares off-brand cheese puffs with Kevin while Renee tries to braid her hair in a comforting way.

Some debate springs up about the cultural significance of Charlie Chaplin, and Christine basks in the cool breeze of the arriving night and the kind embrace of normalcy and friendship.

“So, she was your first girlfriend, right?” Nellie asks, brushing back her dark hair with her well-manicured fingers, reclining elegantly on the dirty pavement.

“Yep.”

“She sounds like the perfect first girlfriend. She introduced you to dating customs and problems, and showed you some kind of extreme in the dating territory. It didn’t last too long for investment reasons, and you’ve got a clean break. You can reasonably never see her again for the rest of your life. Perfect first girlfriend.”

“So, the question now is, who would be your perfect second girlfriend,” Renee says through a yawn, and Christine is too oblivious to sense the hopeful undertones. Her other friends, though, collectively roll their eyes.

“That is the question,” Christine says, sounding a bit like a philosopher.

“Hey, what matters is that the world is your oyster. You’re a lesbian in a city that’s great for lesbians. First, Nora. Next? The world,” says Travis, and Christine takes a moment to stare up at the now starry sky, and blink. 

“The world doesn’t know what’s coming,” she mutters.


	2. act 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Interlude/Jen Part 1 Playlist:  
> Cara Mia-Jay and the Americans  
> I Want to Make You Love Me-Janis Ian  
> Each and Every One-Everything But the Girl  
> The Morning of Our Lives-John Richard & The Modern Lovers  
> Hard Times for Lovers-Judy Collins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The whole Jen saga was originally going to be one chapter, but this was getting long and for consistency I figured I could keep it moderate while also producing, y'know... content.

When Christine’s freshman year ends, she comes to the startling realization that she’s been a lesbian for her whole life (which seems awfully long to her young eyes), and she’s only kissed two girls.

The fact that she’s obligated to spend a chunk of her summer cooped up in Sacramento with her family doesn’t help.

She spends her flight reading trashy magazines and writing a letter to Renee about how afraid she is of spending a summer back in the closet, suffocated by the dry Sacramento heat and the isolation that she never missed. She knows she’s complaining before she even sets foot onto her “beloved” town, but after all that time in the greasy freedom of her liberal arts college, she can’t imagine being anything close to happy in Sacramento.

Granted, she never found peace in NYC, not in the way she wanted when she was young and hurting, but enlightenment seems _possible_ when she’s surrounded by all those musty books and brochures for things she won’t try.

It’s safe to say that Christine misses New York before she even leaves, and it’s no comfort that she’s falling into the arms of Sacramento, of all places.

-

Home turns out to be pretty close to what she remembered. There are still the odd remarks on her hair that could either be glowing compliments or grave insults, but she doesn’t have the tools to figure out which one. The feeling of never being totally clean creeps back into her fingertips, making her fidget whenever she’s alone and imagining scenarios when she comes out to her mom.

There’s a lot of time with nothing to fill it, too. There was only so much room in her suitcase for the novels that her friends keep telling her that she _has_ to read, and she burns through them within the first two weeks. 

After that, she spends time writing letters to Renee and stealing her brother’s bike to go to the pool or the library. It’s California Sunny and Christine lets the warmth sink into her skin, lets it calm her down, but no matter how many biographies she borrows from the bare library, or how many laps she does around the pool, her day always ends the same way.

It’s always her, her father, and her mom, all crowded around that rickety table, shifting between thick silence and terse conversation, with the occasional break for laughter and sweetness.

It’s a gross, addictive potion.

The whole situation reaches its peak one night, where the air is especially balmy and the porch light is flickering, casting flashing light on the windows right outside the door. Christine feels tired and invincible, so she breaks the news to them over some unseasoned chicken and boiled broccoli.

“So…” she starts, thinking about how _big_ this information is, not in importance but in complexity. This is years of questions and suspicions and unexplainable decisions, and now she has to put that into words.

“Yes, Christine?” her mother asks, like her name is a knife. Her dad just turns to her, ready for whatever is about to come out of her mouth.

“I have something to tell you guys,” she says, cringing at her own northeastern cadence. 

“You’re not pregnant, right?” her mom asks, and Christine just shakes her head.

“No, I’m not pregnant, I’m just-”

“Good thing you’re not pregnant, we couldn’t afford that, as you’ve probably figured out. What could it be, then? How expensive?”

“I’m a lesbian, mom. It will cost you exactly zero dollars.”

“Oh,” her mom says, and silence reigns above the table, thick and terrible. Christine grabs her spoon and takes a defiant bite of the chicken, the sound of silverware scraping against a ceramic bowl harsh and unpleasant against their ears.

“I love you, Christine, Lady Bird, whatever you want to be called. What do you need?” asks her dad, and it warms her up and calms her down. She smiles, and refuses to cast a glance to her silent mom, savoring the acceptance from the parent she could trust.

“I don’t need anything, necessarily, nothing tangible. I just want you two to know, this is… it’s important to me. There’s a chance I might bring a girl home, or something like that.”

“Okay,” her mom says, interrupting the blossoming warmth with words like blades.

“Glad you two are so cool,” she says, forcing her tone a little bit. She shirks the gazes from her parents, the worry and the possible annoyance. She take another bite of her chicken, and pushes the bowl away.

“May I be excused?” she asks, an awkward question she’s never asked at the dinner tables in years. She can’t help it, though, she feels too much like a child, under the cold glare of her mom and the worried flashes from her father.

“Of course, but Christi-” her dad starts.

“Good night,” her mom interrupts, and Christine tries to pay more attention to the sounds of her socked feet thudding against carpet instead of the way her heart feels twisted and squeezed.

\- 

Renee starts sending care packages, which is ridiculous and ridiculously sweet, because Christine knows that Renee probably has to drop half of her wallet on the shipping. Nonetheless, she breathes in every little thing she’s sent, and makes sure to send back letters and other cute knick knacks that she can pick up.

The first package gives her a note, blue hair dye, some cookies, and a book of poetry.

Christine almost cries, she loves it so much.

She burns through the poetry, leaving Post-It notes in her favorite passages. She dedicates an afternoon to ruining one of the bathrooms with her hair dye, and the end result is uneven and absolutely perfect. Her mother tries to convince her to go to a salon, to “get it done properly”, but Christine finally has something that belongs to her, and she hugs it close to her chest.

The time passes with a package a week, until finally, her calendar notes that she’s one week away from being back on that plane.

Her last week is some kind of euphoric, in a way that Sacramento rarely is. Her mom seems to be in a good mood, judging by the fact that they actually go to a restaurant as a family without her mom starting a fight or sniping at any waitstaff.

Christine gets some good pasta, expecting some comment about carbs but never really getting one. She’s on guard, in some weird way, because she knows her mom well enough to expect the worst, but she’s still young enough that there’s that voice in her head screaming that things might just be getting better. 

Instead of worrying like she knows she should, she just twirls her newly bright purple hair around her index finger, and lets herself bask in the warm glow of the last day of a bad vacation.

“So, Christine, excited to go back to New York?” her dad asks, fiddling a bit with the stale breadstick in his hand.

“Of course! My best friend and I are going to have one hell of a reunion.”

“Is that the one who’s been sending you those letters?” her mom asks, her eyes turned upwards like she’s trying to envision the letters she’s seen, with the envelopes decorated with stickers and the gel pens that the address is written with.

“Yeah. It’s like we’re at camp, and we send little care packages and status updates, if that makes any sense.”

“Is she the bad influence?” her mom asks, her voice caught right between joking and not.

And there’s the crash, Christine thinks.

“Bad influence?” she asks.

“Well, you know what I mean.”

“I’m afraid I don’t.”

“Let’s not fight, Christine, this is your last night and-” her mom starts, but Christine’s eyes are already burning, and she’s done this too many times to just end it right here.

“I don’t know why I expect you to change,” Christine says, her voice breaking and her eyes getting a bit more blue.

“What does _that_ mean?” her mom asks her right back, and people in nearby booths turn their heads.

“We’ve been doing this for forever, mom. I do one thing wrong, and you turn it into everything. Next thing I know, I’m spending days and weeks apologizing for something so meaningless! It’s this cycle! You never stop, never take a moment to be there for me, and I’m sick of it!”

“Christine, let’s not do this here,” her dad mutters, attempting to placate her by reaching across the table, putting his hand on hers with one deep grimace. Christine whips her hand back, and swipes her hair behind her ear as her face steels over.

“No, we can do this here. Being in public, in front of people we care about… It never bothered mom, might as well not let it bother me!” Christine says, her voice cool but her eyes absolutely manic.

“Christine, I never-”

“But you did! Over and over and over, like it didn’t matter! Like my feelings didn’t even matter all those times, every single time. In front of my teachers, my friends, my soccer coaches-”

“That was one time, Christine! Can you ever forgive me?” her mom asks, giving into the anger that she was so often prone to.

“I don’t know! Can you ever forgive me? Or are you too busy counting all of my faults against me, like you have none of your own? I forgive you over and over, even when you refuse to apologize. I can’t- I can’t apologize anymore for things I didn’t do. I can’t spend another hour of my life like this, feeling guilty just for being alive. At least in New York, I’m free.”

“Then go back!”

“I will!”

Then silence and fuming. Then, Christine turns her chin up, and her father ducks his head down.

“I’m going to walk home. Bye guys,” she mutters, shuffling out of the booth and refusing to look back.

Soon, Christine found herself pounding the streets, floating through the air and trying to keep her burning eyes from just letting it all out: the years of tense jaws and restless nights.

She wishes vaguely that she took her meal to go, but supposes that it would’ve taken away the thunder of her big confrontation. Her eyes get foggier, and her walking becomes slower and less direct, until she’s just loping across the bumpy-shiny sidewalks of California at night, wishing that she could just _change_.

She doesn’t know what she would change, whether it’s her past or her location or the shoes she’s wearing, but she aches so loudly to be different than the girl who walked into that restaurant and thought that things just might work out. She just decides to go home the second she can, back to New York where everything is changing at a rapid fire pace. 

Her breath becomes more labored, and soon she’s slowed down to a trudge across the sidewalks, going forward and passing crosswalks until she finally happens upon the entrance to her neighborhood, marked with a bright green street sign and a wooden post, painted with white, marking the spot. 

With her urgency, she starts walking in the lawns, cringing every time her socks get a bit more wet from the freshly sprinkled lawns. 

She hears the dull roar of a car from behind, and looks to her side to see her mom’s car roll up by he side, the car lights blaring into the night. Her mom rolls down the window, and pushes her head out.

“Christine! Lady Bird! Get in the car!” she shouts out, and Christine ducks her head down and keeps walking along the lawns. She refuses to look at her mom.

“I love you, Christine, get in the car! Stop this, and just get in,” she yells again, and Christine can feel the steaming cloud of tears build up again, making her head hurt. She keeps moving along, refusing to look at the car as the lights shine on the side of her face, feeling as white as hospital lights in the dinn of the night.

“No, I’m walking home _alone_ ,” she yells, her voice cracking childlishly, and she feels so young like this. 

“Stop! Get in!” her mom yells as the car moves slowly with her, tracking every movement with another turn of the tires. 

Christine chooses to just stay silent, marching on in her futile parade while her mom’s car followed at a snail’s pace, building up the tension behind Christine’s eyes while it all keeps cycling over and over, until finally she’s at her house, feeling like a child and a stranger as her mom unlocks the door for her, acknowledging her stony silence with rolling eyes and badly hidden fear.

-

She goes home the next week, after three different letters to and from Renee. The plane ride is long but calming, like every mile away from Sacramento calms her down just a little bit more.

Renee meets her at the baggage claim, carrying the present she promised in her first letter to Sacramento (a bear wearing an “I Love New York” t-shirt). They hug, then Christine gets to dig out her own present, a folder of photocopied pages from Christine’s high school yearbook, the ones with her gawky teen self in them.

“Glad you’re back, my good friend.”

“Why do you sound like a wise old uncle? Cut the crap and call me oldboy, or even Johnny-boy if you think we’re that close,” Christine says, joking and letting her head float with the high altitude and the continued popping in her ears. 

“What kind of uncles do _you_ have? All of mine are just mediocre chiropractors who moonlight as drunk football fans,” says Renee, tucking her hair behind her ear and blinking prettily. 

“How witty. I don’t have uncles, I just have one aunt who lives in Wisconsin, and I haven’t talked to her since I was like, eleven. She seemed pretty cool.”

“My aunt is pretty cool too. She lives in Jersey, you can visit her with me if you want. This is a swift topic shift, but do you wanna blow this popsicle stand? I’m getting antsy, I feel like the next run of bags is going to come around soon,” says Renee, and Christine picks up her bags, and soon, they begin walking.

When they leave the building, and a curtain of heat falls on Christine’s face, Renee grabs her shoulder, making her turn around and stop on the sidewalk.

“Christine?” she says, softly and with sentimentality in her voice.

“Yeah?” 

“I’m really glad you’re back. Welcome home,” Renee says.

The sun shines brightly, and Christine feels the smile as it widens across her face.

-

Summer comes in waves from the pavement, radiating up and in. Christine and Renee spend a lot of the summer out on the town, trying to find every little corner of the city. They duck into every little cafe, drinking the cheapest coffee they can find. Christine ends up getting a job bartending, while offering tarot readings on commission in the back room. 

It leads to her getting hit on by a lot of guys, the ones with beer splashed on their collar and drowsy eyes. 

It also leads to her hitting on lots of girls, the kind that got dragged along by someone else, and have a timbre in their voice that reminds Christine of her friends. It never leads to anything, other than a really good tip and some good conversation.

Christine remembers the girl’s name, since she has big brown eyes that look like a deer’s, which are so gorgeous and moon-like that she stays in her mind.

Her name is Jen. She doesn’t get a last name or a middle name, just that she wants cranberry juice on ice and it’s her brother’s birthday. He’s too busy with all of his other friends to pay much attention to her, so Jen just sits at the bar, talking with Christine whenever there’s a spare moment.

The first order of Christine’s business, then, is figuring out if this _Jen_ likes girls.

“So, are you in college?” she asks, tasting her own cherry lip gloss. 

“Yeah, I’m going to be a junior at Richmond-Jennings. Chemistry major. How about you?”

“Sophomore, Richmond-Jennings. How have I not noticed you around campus?” asks Christine, her eyes trained on her despite the customer on the other side of the bar raising his hand, ready to request another drink.

“Different crowds, I suspect,” says Jen, looking almost sad in that moment.

“What’s your crowd?” 

“The QSA kids… we’re small but loyal,” says Jen, and Christine fights the urge to pump her fist at the confirmation that Jen probably likes girls.

“Oh, my crowd hangs on the opposite ends of campus. The other queer subcommittee, I guess,” says Christine, hamfisted and not at all smooth. Jen gets the hint, if her small smile is anything to go by.

“Hey, lady!” shouts the guy from across the bar, drawing Christine’s focus away, “I’ve been waiting for forever!”

“I’m comin, I’m coming!” she yells back, fighting against the chatter of the party. It makes her feel like a real New Yorker, if only for a second.

“I’ll leave you to your work,” says Jen, before walking off, only giving Christine a wink as she melded into the crowd. Christine could only walk to the other end, giving the man a dirty look as she took his order. 

There was a small thrill, though, in her mind at the idea of possible running into _Jen_ on campus. The possibility of talking, going to parties, kissing at parties, going on dates to all the little cafes Christine spent her summer discovering.

Sophomore year was going to fucking _rule_ , she thought to herself, feeling the distance from Sacramento like it was warm sun on her skin.

-

The day before school starts, Renee invites her to one of those absolutely epic parties, the kind where everyone she knows and everyone she wants to know will be there. It’s in the epicenter of all Richmond-Jennings life: the unregulated piece of land behind the library. 

It’s one of those lots that no campus cop cares to check out, so it’s the premier spot for afternoon soirees and midnight joints. There’s an urban legend that the Richmond-Jennings coven of 1987 cursed that field indefinitely during some summoning ceremony gone wrong.

Naturally, on a spooky, spiritual night like the last day of summer, it’s the perfect venue for a party.

No one specifically hosts the party, it’s just a universally agreed upon tradition. Everyone pitches in. There are four stereos at different corners of the field, all playing different tapes from 13 different people’s music tastes. Renee and Christine steal a table from the dorms, and consider it to be their input to the party. Within seconds, the tables gets piled on with all sorts of party food, from takeout to chips to latkes from a care package.

By 9:30pm, Christine and Renee are splitting a bag of stale chips and sitting on the ground, trying to fan away the increasingly thick cloud of cigarette smoke. 

“Do you think Jen is here?” Christine asks, looking around at the bustling crowds of people.

“Probably. I would love to meet her. You seem, uhh, quite enamored,” says Renee, before awkwardly stuffing her face with a handful of chips. Christine has a moment of confusion at the behavior, before continuing to look around.

“She’s got to be here, right? This is the place to be… and she’s definitely in New York for the summer, so unless she’s too cool for this party, which is pretty unlikely-”

“I beg to differ. This can’t be the coolest party. There are Engineering majors here,” says Renee. Christine has a moment of confusion again at the idea that Renee is suddenly convinced that this is a lame party, despite the fact that she seemed so hyped to be a part of it.

“Aren’t you considering majoring in, like, environmental science? Because that would make you just as uncool as the Engineering kids. Environmental Science is way lamer than people putting wires together,” says Christine, and she doesn’t totally understand either major, but she does very much dislike this new, judgemental Renee.

“Environmental Science is way cooler than Engineering. It’s always better when we work together, but still. If this is a cop situation, two partners who get shit done, the Environmental Science one is the cool cop,” says Renee, speaking through a bite of chips. Christine laughs at it, slowly sinking back into ease.

“So what you’re saying… correct me if I’m wrong… that the most touchy feely, wellbeing focused science major offered at Richmond-Jennings… is the one that does vigilante justice and rides in car chases? And the ones who work power tools are the ones who play good cop? Are you _sure_?” jokes Christine, and someone walks close enough to her that she scoots in a little closer to Renee, who’s starting to laugh. It’s a perfectly peachy moment, stained orange beneath the setting sun, until a voice breaks through the veil.

“Christine?”

Christine’s head turns around so quick it might’ve fallen off her neck, and in front of her eyes stands Jen, holding a pair of sunglasses in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other.

“Jen? I was wondering if you were here!” says Christine, scrambling to her feet and wiping her suddenly sweaty hands on her jeans, feeling nervous sweat drip down the back of her neck. Jen smiles in return, and she shoves her hands in her pockets and looks so goddamn _cute_ that Christine wanted to do something dumb, like propose or talk about her feelings.

“Same here!” she says, and she pulls her hands out of her pockets and next thing Christine knows, she’s swept into an awkward hug. She gets the chance to smell Jen’s shampoo, and indulges for a second before realizing that smelling hair was a creeper move, causing her to shock her way out of the hug. 

“Christine, is this your friend?” asks Renee, adding her voice to the gallery of sound that surrounded Christine, standing on the edge of being overwhelming.

“Yeah! This is Jen. Jen, this is Renee,” says Christine, and Renee stands up to shake Jen’s hand, an odd look in her eyes, like she’s sizing up Jen.

“How are you, uhh, Jen?” asks Renee, like she hasn’t been hearing about nothing but this brown eyed girl for the last week.

“Pretty good, I’d say,” she says, and her head ducks down in some bashful way, which makes Christine’s heart flutter even harder. She finds the weirdest shit attractive, that’s for sure.

“How did the party go?” asks Christine.

“Downhill. My brother hooked up with two girls, who then met each other and realized what he did… and, uhh… considering the amount of alcohol at that bash, you can probably guess how it turned out. It certainly didn’t help that he was absolutely fucking _sloshed_ ,” says Jen, and Christine can vaguely remember a commotion happening outside that sure sounded like drunken tomfoolery, but she never investigated it.

“Did you at least get some funny pictures?” asks Christine, sticking her own hands in her pockets and mirroring all of Jen’s body language. 

“I’m afraid not. Part of the debacle was that one of the girls snatched my camera out of my hands and smashed it.”

“Occupational hazard to being a sister of a two timer?” 

Jen laughs, breathy and quiet. Christine has to hold back a contented sigh, but she can’t really edit the visibly lovesick look in her eyes. 

“Thank god I’m an only child,” says Renee, popping the bubble that had begun to form between Jen and Christine. Jen looks almost shocked, like she forgot Renee was there (was that a good sign? Bad? Irrelevant?), and then she looked around, suddenly a bit awkward in her own skin. 

“I should probably jet. My QSA squad is probably going to be a bit worried, I kinda ditched the buddy system when I saw you… So, see you later?” says Jen, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.

“For sure!” says Christine as Jen starts walking away, backwards at first as if she wanted to stay facing Christine for a little bit long (unless Christine was just unobservant and everybody walked like that, which wouldn’t be shocking).

“Come to a QSA meeting!” yells Jen, before she dissipates into the crowd again, leaving a lovestruck Christine in her wake, and a bout of silence.

Christine slowly turned back to face Renee again, who had migrated back to sitting down and eating her chips.

“So… that’s Jen?” she asks.

“Yeah,” sighs Christine, her mind going a mile a minute, high on crush adrenaline.

“I’ll be honest with you, kiddo. She’s not as hot as you implied,” says Renee, and Christine pushes her in the shoulder, 

“You just have bad taste in women,” says Christine stealing a chip. 

“I really do,” says Renee, her eyes flashing a second of sadness before flicking back onto Party Ready Renee Mode. Christine wonders, for a second, if there’s a story in there, but she figures now isn’t the time to ask.

-

School starts without much fanfare, a welcome change for Christine. She discovers that she prefers slipping into school over having clearly defined beginnings and ends to her summers and academic semesters. She has a list of resolutions written on one of those crappy mini dry erase boards, and they outline her mindset as she starts sophomore year at the place she can comfortably call home.

Read more  
(She figures that the library may have more good uses than being a chore in her day where she gets the required readings and zips out. It’s an abnormally pretty building, first off, and she also wants to read more novels and poetry. Half of it is so she can feel smart, and the other half is so the fancy New York girls she’ll inevitably run into have something to talk to her about.)

2\. Do more gay shit  
(This means going to more QSA meetings, and also getting a lot more action.)

3\. LESS CONTACT W MOM!!!  
(She underlines it on her board. She knows that it’s going to take effort, because the McPhersons have a bit of a problem with letting things go, and her mom is no exception. Christine knows that she’ll have to pry herself out of the emotional _and_ communicative hold of her mom, otherwise she’ll just be stuck forever.)

4\. More cute girls, less sadness  
(Christine definitely wants to run into Jen a lot more. She also has this secret fantasy of knowing lots of pretty women platonically, just so she can surround herself with beauty.)

5\. Good grades are good  
(Christine spent the last year discovering that she’s smarter than she thought she was, so she decides that this year is going to be about backing that up with proof on paper. Her grades were never bad, per say, but there’s something tantalizing about that A, and she wants in on that club.)

With these five things in mind, hanging right above her bed, she starts the year with confidence.

-

The next time she runs into Jen, she’s actually in one of the darker, less explored corners of the library. It’s in the History section, and since most kids gravitate towards the basic American history books, Christine gets plenty of space to check out the more obscure, international stuff.

This means that she’s considering at a book on early Russian History when Jen calls her name, quietly and tentatively. The book is still in her hands as she looks up, and when she registers that Jen is _here_ , of all places, she closes it and lets it hang by her side.

“Jen? How’re you doing?” Christine asks, hoping that her voice sounds cool despite the fact that it was a bit raspy from screaming her head off at a concert the night before.

“I’m doing good. Looking for some research to back up this big lab write-up I have to do… what brings you to the, uh, Russian section of the library? Flirting with communism?” Jen asks, and Christine has to bite her tongue to keep herself from saying _no, I’m flirting with you, idiot_. 

“Honestly? Interest. Trying to broaden my historical perspective, you know?” says Christine, hoping she sounds more cooly intellectual than pretentiously boring. 

“That’s so cool! Wow, now I feel kind of lame,” says Jen, and Christine takes a moment to take in the rest of Jen’s appearance, including the too-large sweatshirt and yellow rain boots, despite it being perfectly sunny outside.

“I was worried about seeming lame by talking about Russian history, so you don’t have anything to worry about. What’s with the, uhh…” she trails off, gesturing to the boots. 

“My friends might or might not have tied them to one of those homemade rockets as part of a physics experiment. Their hypothesis was, and I quote, ‘boots go high, sneakers go higher’. The result? Both shoes catch on fire and I need to spend my next paycheck on shoes. Until then, I’m just going to be rocking these rubber boots.”

“At least you’re prepared for the rain,” says Christine, smiling at the way Jen could dissipate the awkwardness with just one rant. 

“Yeah. I’m also prepared to go ankle deep in a lake, so if you need that, you know who to call,” says Jen, and Christine feels emboldened enough by her sophomore hubris that she decides to take a risk.

“Too bad I can’t call you without your number…” she leads, giving Jen the chance to back off or engage. Jen just smiles, her lip gloss shining a bit in the lights of the library.

“We can remedy that right now. Do you have something to write with?” asks Jen, gesturing to Christine’s bag, sitting on the floor. Christine, a little bit too fast, fishes a sharpie out of one of the pockets, and rolls up her sleeve.

“Tattoo me up, Jen,” she says, baring her forearm. Jen giggles a little bit, and she marks it down as a victory. 

Then, Jen writes her number on Christine, writing curly-looking numbers with confidence. Christine uses the moment to relish in their immediate closeness, in the way that she can see some of the freckles on Jen’s nose that can’t be seen from far away. It’s absolutely intoxicating, and when the number is completed, Christine fights the urge to just ask Jen on a date already.

She then remembers that if she’s learned anything in the past year, it’s finesse. She can’t dive into this like she did with Nora, she’s gotta flirt and establish a relationship first, so they have a foundation. 

With this in mind, she holds herself back, and checks the watch on her arm. 

It’s 3:14, and she promised her friend Kien that they’d be having a homework help session at 3:15. And not only is Kien bringing her lunch, but he’s also a hardass about punctuality.

“Shit, I gotta go,” says Christine, hoping it doesn’t come off like she’s playing hard to get, or trying to get out of it. 

“Are you going to check out the book?” Jen asks, and Cristine realizes that she’s still holding it.

“I don’t have time, _fuck_. Kien’s gonna kick my ass,” mutters Christine, and she’s operating on pure instinct, so she hands the book to Jen and runs as fast as she can.

She arrives at 3:17, and Kien’s not even in the common area yet. She checks her voicemail, and finds out that he got held up at the fast food place, so she just has to sit tight. Christine sighs at no one in particular, and hugs her newly marked arm a little closer, and lets it sink in that she had at least one victory today.

-

That night, when the sun has begun to set and Christine had just finished her nighttime beauty routine, she dials out the number on her small cell phone. It rings once. Christine tousles her hair a bit, a nervous habit. She realizes that she needs to re-dye her hair.

Second ring, and she pulls the hair in front of her eyes, examining the faded violet with narrowed eyes. Should she do pink next? Or green? Her mom would hate green, which is tempting.

Third ring, would Jen like the green hair? That’s one of the most divisive hair colors out there, and if Jen thinks it’s gross…

Fourth ring. Fifth ring. Sixth ring, and then a click.

“Hi, this is Jennifer’s voicemail! If I didn’t answer, I’m either sleeping or busy. Leave a voicemail after the beep… which is coming… now-” she says, and then the beep sounds. It’s charming enough that CHristine doesn’t feel too bad about being relegated to voicemail.

“It’s Christine, the one from the bar… and the party, and the library. All of the above. Calling to ask about the possibility of, uhh… Hanging out? Going out sometime and… it’s New York, we can find something to do. Call me back with a yes, a no, or an idea… bye, Jen’s voicemail!” she says, her voice chirpy and energetic in a way that the doesn’t totally feel. 

Christine figures that yeah, she should probably try out green. It’s sophomore year, and she just asked a girl out, so she’s kind of invincible. She dials up Renee, ready to ask for a second opinion.

-

“So, on a scale of one to ten, how likely is it that this Jen thing is going to happen?” Renee asks, perched awkwardly on the side of the bathtub. She has the gloves on, with the oily residue of the green hair dye on them. At the other side of the bathroom, Christine looks up from her magazine, sitting on the floor of the bathroom. Both of their dye jobs are setting, Christine’s green and Renee’s pink.

“I’m not sure. Seven point five? I can’t read her mind, so I don’t know if she’s as interested as I am, but she did give me her number. That’s a good sign.”

“It is,” says Renee, nodding sagely.

“How do you tell if a girl is interested in you?” Christine asks.

“You don’t,” is Renee’s wise answer, and Christine throws the magazine at her from across the bathroom, missing spectacularly.

“You’ve dated before! You have to have some idea of what people act like when they’re into you!” says Christine, having some flashbacks of all the times Renee was blatantly flirted with. 

“I am blind to people being into me. If someone has ever flirted with me, I have no idea. I don’t know if a girl likes me even if we’ve dated for months. It’s my Achilles heel,” says Renee.

“That makes so much sense! I have that too!”

“Without a doubt,” says Renee. “It’s a common lesbian disease.”

“Yeah. That and not being able to come up with good nicknames,” Christine adds, a little snicker in her voice.

“What? How could Christine ‘Lady Bird’ McPherson not be an absolute baller at nicknames?” Renee jokes.

“I dare you to come up with a better nickname for me, asshole,” says Christine, shuffling a bit in her spot and laughing under her breath.

“Chris? Tina? Teeny? Mama Bird? Birdy? Birdine? I’m a fountain of possibilities, baby,” Renee jokes.

“So, next time me and Jen hang out, I’m definitely going to tell her that my real friends call me Birdine,” says Christine, already imagining the encounter in her head.

“What? No! Birdine was my worst one! It makes you sound like a nerd who, like, watches birds! We need to make you seem like a cool kid, like someone who skates and goes to concerts. We need to up your bachelorette skills, Birdine.”

“You like it. I can tell.”

“It can be our personal thing. But your public nickname? That’s a whole other beast,” says Renee, her eyes lighting up. Her brain is clearly firing on all cylinders, nicknames popping up.

“Skater Girl? Too obvious. Eagle? I like Eagle. Birds and badasses,” says Renee, and Christine shuffles towards her, following the energy of the conversation.

“Eagle is kinda awkward. What about Sparrow?” Christine asks, her eyes wide like she just caught lightning in a bottle.

“Sparrow?” Renee asks, thinking it over, looking at Christine across from her, like she’s looking deep in her soul.

“Yeah. I feel like, at the very least, it’ll make a good pen name or something,” Christine says.

“I like it. Fits you,” Renee says. “Yeah, it- it fits you. Scrappy young thing fighting for its life. That’s you. Sparrow.”

“Don’t worry, you have Birdine rights, too,” Christine says, smiling softly. 

She feels love in a way that’s richer than she’s ever felt it, much deeper and truer than anything she felt in Sacramento. It’s a New York kind of love, with little conversations hidden in every corner and complexity under ever footstep. She feels comfortable in a way she never really did before, and it fills her up, makes her smile until her cheeks hurt.

“What’re you smilin’ for?” Renee softly asks, her head tilted to the side.

“Just happy, I guess,” says Christine, feeling a sunny sort of joy surround her on all sides. 

This was home, she thinks. Just her, her best friend, and a romance on the horizon. 

Hell yeah.


	3. act 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jen Part 2 Playlist:  
> Never Going Home-Hazel English  
> Believe Me Natalie-The Killers  
> Ephemeralness-Adult Mom  
> Seattle Party-Chastity Belt  
> Hedonists-Dreamgirl

One day (and approximately 3 hours, 46 minutes, and 7 seconds, not that anyone’s counting) later, Jen calls Christine back. Christine is, without a doubt, swooning at the whole scene: Jen asking “is this the right number?” in her soft, lilting voice, and then chatting for a bit about school before Jen pops the question.

“What if we hung out? At, like… a coffee shop. Or a record store, or whatever your scene is,” Jen asks, and Christine’s heart is beating out of her chest. For a moment, she feels extremely grateful that she’s alone in her dorm tonight, because she would get teased within an inch of her life if her roommate saw her fist pumping and smiling like an idiot.

“Like a date?” she asks, a little too fast, a little to eagerly.

“Yeah. Like a date,” says Jen, and the victory dance starts in earnest, with some headbanging involved.

“Christine?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Do you want to go on the date? You’re being quiet and I- if you don’t wanna go, I’m totally cool-”

“Oh shit! I kind of forgot that you can’t see me. The answer was yes, I was doing a victory dance.”

Jen laughs over the phone, a lovely, tinkling sound, and Christine swoons even more, if that’s even possible.

“Really? What kind of dance moves?” she asks, and Christine can _hear_ her smile and this just might be heaven, she thinks. 

“Some headbanging, some fist pumping… maybe an Irish jig or two, I just freestyle,” says Christine, causing another round of laughter. Christine vows to herself, in that moment, that she would jump over the moon to hear that laughter. 

-

Two days later, Christine finds herself in a tiny kosher bakery, splitting a small box of rugelach with Jen and talking about the secret drama in the Queer Straight Alliance, and she decides that Belinda Carlisle was right:n Heaven _is_ a place on Earth.

“No, seriously! They decide that stuff at least a year in advance. I can tell you right now which freshman is probably going to be the chair when they’re a senior,” says Jen in between bites.

“Name! I need a name,” says Christine, trying to refrain from slamming her hands on the table( one of her New Year’s Resolutions was to be a bit more restrained in restaurants, so she wouldn’t repeat the Sammy’s Pizza debacle that included a lifetime ban and a lot of tomato sauce on her white shirt.)

“Are you familiar with Jeannette Cullen?” Jen asks, a gleefully dangerous glint in her eye.

“Is she the freshman with the shaved head?” 

“Yeah, and the cult,” jokes Jen in a fake-serious tone.

“Oh?” Christine asks, laughing already. 

“There are two types of chairs that the QSA has in any given year, right? The dark horse who came from some dinky little town and has enough charisma to wreak havoc, or the presidential candidate. The presidential candidate is polite, knows everyone, and is so respectable that it seems blasphemous to let anyone else take the job.”

“So me and you, respectively,” says Christine.

“Basically. We basically take a read on the class, and then choose the likely candidate, and then bam, we’re pulling them through the ranks. Jeannette Cullen is the likely candidate.”

“I feel like I’m getting the inside scoop on some serious political intrigue. Will you have to kill me at the end of this conversation?” Christine asks. Her hands rest on the table, and she desperately hopes that Jen will just take the hint and hold them.

Jen looks her in the eyes and smiles, disarming Christine from any coolness or composure she even hoped to have. It doesn’t matter, because this makes up for it in leaps and bounds. Jen’s eyes flicker down to Christine’s hands, and her own hands drift to rest gently over Christine’s. 

Christine’s mind is made of fireworks, and they slowly begin to burst, making her eyes sparkle with mirth and her stomach flip over in nervous excitement.

“I don’t think I’ll kill you… who else would buy me rugelach? Not to mention the company… which is, uh, very nice. Talking with you is quite lovely, if I do say so myself,” says Jen, stumbling over the last couple of words as nervousness started to creep through her. She reaches for her water, still keeping one hand on Christine’s.

“And to think, we haven’t even made out yet.”

Jen chokes on her water, before resurfacing with a bashful smile. Christine is absolutely shining.

-

“So are you two, like… dating?” Nathan asks, refusing to look Christine in the eye and instead focusing on twirling the spaghetti properly around his fork. He was her chronically nervous lab partner, and they had decided to take a good break in the cafeteria, taking advantage of their meal plans for a nice dinner.

“We haven’t put a label on it. Why?” Christine says, trying to make herself heard over the ambient noise of the students around her.

“You like her a lot. I figured you’d have snagged her by now,” says Nathan, and he finally looks up, looking a little bit more nervous than usual. 

“I don’t wanna rush it, or anything. Can’t scare her away before it gets good. If I pull out the G word-”

“Gangster? Are you part of a gang?” Nathan asks, his eyes widening. His gaze catches on the drawing on Christine’s wrist, a loop-de-loop done out of boredom during a Stats lecture.

“No, girlfriend. I’m not part of a gang. Why do you think everything has to do with gangs?” Christine says, remembering the time that Nathan thought that his brother’s frat was a front for a gang (“they had hand signs and code names! In retrospect, I shouldn’t have called the cops, but what were my other options?”).

“My mom was worried I would get, like, tricked into one of them so she told me about all the signs.”

“You would be so popular in my hometown, oh my god! Everyone would want to know your tips!” says Christine, laughing a bit with the memory of every school assembly she sat through on the topic. 

“I’m popular here, too,” Nate says with a hint of defensiveness. Christine’s callous nature is screaming for her to push the joke to its logical extreme, but she holds herself back. She’s slowly unlearning the meanness that her mother taught her.

“I’m just- I’m curious about how you would get tricked into a gang. It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing you just stumble into,” she says, and Nathan laughs. She gets the feeling that she may just be getting better at being a good person, and it makes her smile even wider.

-

She isn’t reminded of her mom again until late that night, when her cell phone starts ringing. Her eyes aren’t focused on anything but the blank word document screeching into her eyes, so she answers without checking the number.

“Hello?” she asks.

“Christine,” says her mother, words like ice coming through the phone.

Christine stills, sticking up straight in her library seat, eyes wide. She’s remembering her greeting, that simple five letter word. _Hello_. Fuck, that was idiotic. Absolutely fucking stupid. She can imagine how her mom hears her voice, muddled and lazy through the phone. 

“Christine?” her mom asks, and she scrambles in the seat, remembering that her mom is _right there_ and she’s been agonizing over her greeting for _who knows how long_ and fuck, fuck fuck fuck fuckfuckfuck-

“Are you there?”

“Yes, I am- I’m here,” Christine says, trying to quietly settle back into her chair. She closes the word document- she won’t get any shit done with her mom on her mind.

“How are you, Christine?” her mom asks, the word weaponized and laced with something. Se has the automatic urge to respond with “It’s Lady Bird”, but she keeps it in, because she is Christine. No amount of teenage rebellion or New York autumns or boxes of rugelach can change that.

“I’m doing fine. Why are you calling?”

“Do I need a reason to call my daughter?”

“When she’s cut you off, yes. You need a reason,” says Christine, faking all the bravado she can find in her second nature. She worms her way out of the chair and grabs her backpack, starting the long walk outside, where she can cope with this while breathing in the calm, cool night air.

“I don’t have one. Do you want me to hang up, then?”

“No,” says Christine, softly and miserably. She feels years younger.

“Your father wanted to know-”

“Then why didn’t he call me?” she interrupts just as she breaks through the library doors, the cool air hitting her face like a blanket.

“Jesus Christ, Christine, can I not get a word out? Will you not let your _mother_ finish her sentence?”

She begins to pace, taking advantage of the small patch of pavilion next to the library. She must look absolutely ridiculous, walking in terse circles while speaking so seriously into her ridiculous looking phone (Renee put some stickers on it, so every conversation comes through the filter of bright Teletubbies themed stickers).

“Finish your sentence,” she says, feeling just as weak as her voice must sound. 

“Your father wanted to know how you are doing. You don’t talk to us enough, and he was worried. His phone was broken, and the handheld freaks him out, so I’m here to ask. How are you?”

“Why does the handheld scare him?” Christine asks.

“Radiation.”

“Oh, alright.”

Silence. Christine’s pacing slows a couple of beats. She can hear the faint brush of her mom’s breathing, in and out and in and-

“So, how are you?”

Christine thinks that she just might hear a string of desperation in her mom’s voice, and unbidden thoughts come tearing through her mind. Does her mom want to make things better, become vulnerable and real again? Is this what she’s been waiting for?

“I’m doing alright. I’m happy.”

“Really?”

Christine stills to a complete stop.

“Yeah, I am. I think I figured out my major.”

“What major?” her mom asks, and her voice is softer in this moment than Christine ever remembers. The last time her mom was like this, she was sobbing in her arms and it was freshman year. 

“History. It’s so interesting, mom, and-”

“History? Really?” her mom asks, and Christine tenses up. Is this going to be another one of _those_ conversations, where it starts sweet and morphs into something poisonous and horrible?

“Yeah. Depending on how the track goes, I think I can be a teacher. I might be a PhD candidate, actually, according my Sociology professor.”

“That’s thinking... far ahead,” her mom says, as if she didn’t spend Christine’s childhood asking her what she wanted to be when she grew up and scowling when the answer was “I don’t know”. Christine is feeling good, so instead of bringing this up, she just rolls her eyes at the memory. 

“Yeah, but my future’s approaching! I gotta do what I can. So, uh, step one is to declare that history major.”

“Is that a popular major? Among your friends?” her mom says, and this is the poison in the pot. The way “friends” rolls of her tongue is sharp and ugly and if Christine was a fighter, she’d be holding up her fists in defense. Right now she’s trying to be a lover, which gets harder by the second. 

“No, I’m the only one in my _friend_ group to choose history. Everyone’s declaring a different thing. One of my friends is majoring in Spanish, another in pre-med, and environmental science… and, uh, my girlfriend is a Chemistry major.”

Christine knows that she and Jen haven’t said te G word yet, but it seems like the only right way to define what they are. Christine pivots from her panic on flippantly calling Jen her girlfriend to her panic about the silence on the other end of the line.

“Hm. That’s fun. Want to talk to your father?” her mom says, and Christine’s heart settles itself at the bottom of her stomach. Suddenly, she’s seventeen again, clenching her fists and feeling like she’s screaming at a brick wall. 

“I’ve got to go. Tell him I love him,” she says. 

“Alright, if that’s what _you_ want to do…” says her mom, drawling dangerously over every word, “I love you Christine, goodbye.”

“Have a good night.”

Christine hangs up.

She feels like a martyr and the bad guy all at once, while also feeling a little bit cold from the night air, and she gets a very sudden craving for fries. She pulls out her phone again, opening it up and going to contacts.

Her thumb hangs over the “Mom” tab, wondering if she can call again and say I love you and fix every single thing between them. Maybe, she thinks, mom will change, will be nicer and less volatile and less… like that. The more Christine tries to put a name to it the worse she feels.

She stares at the screen, at the technicolor “Mom”.

She doesn’t press it, she scrolls down, down an endless litany of names. Then, she stills on one, hovering over the call button.

Jen. Should she call Jen? Is this angst too soon for a blossoming relationship? What is the waiting period for rants about how her relationship with her mom is completely broken? 

Christine takes a deep breath and makes the jump, pressing down on the call button and letting the sound of ringing flow through the air. Then, a click and a faded “hello?”

“Hey! Jen! Um, there has- it’s been a rough night. Can we hang out? I really need to be with someone I like right now,” Christine says, hoping desperately that her voice sounds okay- not too strained or watery.

“Totally! Wanna go to my dorm, or…?”

“That sounds fantastic.”

“Good,” says Jen, and Christine smiles a bit, already walking in the direction of Jen’s building. 

-

Jen’s dorm room had the same skeleton as Christine’s- had the same wardrobe and stock dorm room bed and desk set. Everything else, however, was totally different. Jen had evidently leaned into the power of decoration, shrugging it off as a symptom of having a friend majoring in interior design. There was a consistent color palette of pinks and greys, making for a soft, comforting atmosphere as Christine sobbed on Jen’s bed while she watched from a bean bag chair.

“I- I don’t know w-why I keep thinking that it will work, because it never works!” says Christine, hiccupping occasionally with the force of her cries. She’s sure that her face is clouded with bursts of ugly pinks, red and angry unlike the soft pinks of Jen’s room. 

“Why did she call you today?” Jen asks, her voice soft and kind in a way that makes Christine cry a bit harder while giving a grateful smile. There’s something in her head saying that she’s not good enough to have someone as kind and lovely as Jen in her life, but she opts to ignore it for now, focusing instead of answering the question.

“I don’t even know! She said it had something to do with my father, but I don’t even remember what about my dad I was supposed to learn from the phone call.”

“Do you think that there was a message from your dad in the first place?” Jen asks as she rifles through the bag next to her bean bag chair. As Christine ponders the question, Jen pulls out a pack of strawberry gum, pooping a stick in her mouth and throwing another one to Christine, which falls just short of the bed.

“What’s the gum about?” she asks, leaning over to pick the stick up. She can’t even begin to wonder if her mom was lying about why she was calling, so all of her focus slips into unwrapping and popping the gum into her mouth.

“I feel like you could use something sweet right now,” Jen says, her voice sweet and soft. Christine’s heart flutters a bit.

“I already have you. Not going to turn down the gum, though,” says Christine, punctuating it with a failed pop of the gum. The tears are starting to dry, things are getting a bit better.

“Thanks… can I ask another quick question? About your mom?”

“Shoot,” says Christine, her voice becoming a bit rougher with the mood shift.

“How was she when you came out? If you came out to her… no judgement here, or anything,” says Jen, her voice turning into an awkward ramble.

“She knows. Her response was… prickly, I guess. She thought it was something I was, like, peer pressured into. Something about bad influences. She’s a real, um, wacky character. My dad was super cool about it, though. In general, it was a super awkward family dinner,” says Christine, before falling into an awkward silence. Then, she thinks of something. “How was your coming out?”

“Boring. I sat my parents down, told them, they cried, and then said they loved me. They got used to the idea quickly, though… once they realized that they could hold ‘I love my lesbian daughter’ signs at Pride parades, they were on board,” says Jen, making Christine smile softly.

“Do they have one of those shirts? The ones about loving their lesbian daughter?”

“Oh, you know it!” 

“I should get my dad one of those,” sayes Christine lightly, not letting the sad thoughts barge in and instead imagining her stick thin dad wearing an oversized shirt saying “I love my lesbian daughter”.

“It’s a fantastic gift. I’ll pitch in, if you need.”

There’s a moment of silence, comfortable and content, before Christine breaks it with an unladylike pop of her gum, this time spectacularly successful. It makes Jen smile, which makes Christine smile, which makes every single cell in her body feel sunny, even though it’s properly night time. 

“Thank you,” Christine says, her voice unusually quiet. There’s no performance in this one, and she hopes that Jen can see it, can hear it.

“Nothing to thank me for. Hanging out with you is a pleasure, no matter what circumstances bring us together,” Jen says, making Christine’s heart thump ever harder. “You’re just- I don’t know how to put it into words, not really. I just… like spending time with you. You are an absolute joy.”

The thing that Renee said a couple of days before, the thing about Christine being like a bird, never felt so true. Christine feels like she’s soaring, like she’s swimming through the heavens. She’s more enamored with Jen than she thinks she’s ever been. It comes a bit as a shock, especially with all her memories of barely-realized crushes on Sacramento girls, and relationships like Nora. 

“Hey, Jen?” Christine asks without thinking. It takes a moment for her to realize what she’s about to say, what she’s about to ask of Jen.

“Yeah?” Jen asks.

Silence. Christine can feel the anticipation like a hot fog over her eyes. It’s about to happen, she thinks.

“I told my mom that you were my girlfriend.”

The silence hangs in the air again. Christine has the stark realization, the screaming voice in her head that won’t stop going on about how she just fucked up. She tries to focus on the quieter voice asking her to just _wait_.

She can hear Jen’s sharp inhale through the nose, and she sees the features on her face grow a bit softer. She doesn’t know what this means. Her heart is beating quickly and noisily, like the flapping of bird wings in flight. 

“Do you, um… want to be? My girlfriend, I mean,” Jen asks. 

“If you’re okay with that, I’d be, uhh… I’d be down.”

“I’m down,” says Jen, and at this moment, she locks eyes with Christine. It takes a moment for her to process the words, to understand what they _mean_. Once it hits her, the fact of the matter warms her up and makes her smile with a rosy gleam. 

“Baller.”

-

Christine celebrates the genesis of her second relationship with a couple of cookies and a bunch of celebration dances, all surrounded by congratulating friends. They crowd around in the common room, making all the “taken woman” jokes that Christine can stomach in one go. Someone fashions a promise ring for her out of gum wrappers, and she has the oddest feeling that she’s never been as close and far away from people at the same time.

It feels odd for her, beginning what was shaping up to be her first real, serious relationship years after all her friends did.

She has the gangly awkwardness of being quietly considered a late bloomer, and that sticks with her throughout the whole night of idle celebration. She can’t stop wondering if this is ever going away- that sensation that she’s lagging a few steps behind everyone else.

“What’s on your mind, Birdine?” Renee asks, sitting down on the couch and clearly trying to stay nonchalant. Christine looks around her, at her friends in their fun, and she realizes how she must look to the outside eye. 

“Just feelin’ kind of weird,” Christine says, properly looking Renee in the eye. She can see that the eyeliner wing on Renee’s right eye had disintegrated while the left one stayed strong, and she had the tired urge to run her finger along the fading mark. She fights the urge to roll her eyes at herself, at the way that even with a girlfriend, some dumb school girl crushes wouldn’t totally go away. It’s somehow both disheartening and empowering, that some things won’t change.

“Any reason why?” Renee asks, getting more comfortable in her spot on the couch, an action that Christine unconsciously mirrors. They’ve angled themselves towards each other, heads leaning on the back of the couch as they look at each other, trying to find the exact right thing to say.

“I just feel weird over being the resident late bloomer,” she says, wishing that it were that simple.

“It’s not your fault that you grew up in Sacramento. It’s just a bit of a luck game, sometimes. Luck and timing and being in the right place. I’m always- I have this thing where I’m always in the right place at the wrong time. Like, I’ll find the right girl, but we’ll just miss each other, and then the moment’s gone. Sacramento wasn’t the right place or time for you, but here and now is it, and that’s beautiful. Don’t feel bad because yours was a bit different than everyone else’s,” says Renee, her voice earnest with the rasp that could only surface at 1am.

“I hope you find your right time and place, Renee.”

Renee doesn’t respond, at least not with words. She just smiles and ducks her head for a second.

“If you make me cry, I’m getting off this couch,” says Renee, still speaking into her chest.

“You won’t, it’s too comfortable,” says Christine, smiling as Renee’s face lifts, sharing a smile of its own. 

“You’re right and I hate it.”

-

In the first month that they’re dating, Christine comes to the slow realization that Jen’s biggest weakness is how many people break her stuff. First it was her camera, then her shoes, and as of their one month anniversary, Jen’s bicycle that she’d use to get to the comedy club of their date was taken apart by her engineering friends, and she was late.

And now Christine is alone and shoved into a tiny table for two, listening to the racket before the show. The loneliness of being alone during a date felt weird on her skin, giving her Nora flashbacks that made the backs of her eyes hurt.

As she muses over the perfunctory bowl of bread that she ordered, miserably peeling the flaky crust off of it, the lights dim, and thunderous applause begins. 

(She _knows_ that this isn’t like Nora, that she’s not being stood up. She’s perfectly aware that Jen would love to be there with her and that she’s just running late due to circumstances out of her control, but that string of hurt keeps playing, deep in her stomach.)

The comedian comes on stage, he’s some skinny 30 year old kid, and the applause of the crowd is clearly rattling him. She feels immediate kinship with him, and judging by the way the audience hangs on the edge of their seat, she thinks everyone else does too.

“So… last week I got stood up,” he says, immediately gathering sympathetic “aww”s from the audience.

Christine feels a twinge in her stomach, all of her worried coming back to the forefront of her mind.

“It’s okay! It’s okay… I actually met someone at the restaurant, and can I be honest real quick? I want to marry him.”

Silence, tension in the audience. Christine can feel it for a second.

“Because that’s one hell of a story to tell during the reception,” he finishes, and Christine titters a bit, mind successfully off the topic, until her phone begins buzzing, and she sees that it’s Jen calling.

She doesn’t know why she does it, whether it’s out of some misplaced anger or desperation or just annoyance, but she declines the message and sits back in her seat. 

-

The next day, Jen doesn’t try to call again, she just catches Christine on her way to her Stats course. Brown eyes blown up in worry.

“Oh my god, Christine! You’re okay! You didn’t answer my calls and when i got to the club you weren’t there and… I called Renee and she said you were fine but that something was wrong with your phone but you were asleep and…”

Jen continues in the hurried, anxious story, and suddenly Christine feels guilt hit her like a truck. All of the angst from the night before unleashes, and with the realization that Jen wasn’t mad or disappointed or any other expected feeling, she was just worried? It’s a twist of the lemon juice coated knife that also has a bomb in it, as far as Christine is concerned.

She starts crying. 

Jen’s monologue stops in its tracks, and she looks even more worried, and it just makes Christine cry even harder, because holy _shit_ she’s a bad person. She made this girl, this girl that she likes so much, she made her worried and sad and every other bad thing in the world. Jen rushes up to her and catches her in a hug, murmuring “what’s wrong?” under her breath with every couple of sobs.

“I’m- I’m- I’m a ba- I’m a bad per- person…” Christine sobs, the words fighting through her teeth. She’s hyper-aware of the fact that people are probably looking at her and seeing her for who she really is. That is, a bad person. She probably had snakes for eyes and fangs, she just never wanted to recognize it because she wanted to think that she was a good person and-

“What? Christine, you aren’t a bad person!” says Jen, helplessly rubbing at Christine’s back. It feels so natural and kind, so warm and so _Jen_ that Christine can’t find the words to respond. Instead, she just cries, gasping in air whenever she can.

 _She is_ , she thinks. _I am a bad person_ , thinks Christine, _I’m just too good at hiding it because I’m a bad enough person to put it behind a mask. It’s like how the best supervillains are the ones that know how to look good._

“What happened?” Jen asks. Christine can feel her head move around a little bit on her shoulder, and she figures that Jen is looking around at the people around them who are no doubt watching this all go down. “Do you want to go to your dorm?” Jen asks, her attention now shifting. Christine can’t tell if that’s a relief or not.

Christine just nods, hoping that Jen can feel it.

Jen extricates herself from Christine and pulls her by the wrists to her dorm, guiding her through the paths of their campus, which seems like a maze through the veil of her tears. She tries to wipe them away, but they keep coming in a never ending stream.

Time blurs around her, dissolved into nothing but the wishy washy sensation of color and movement and the warm hands that guide her through the muddled sea. Then, she’s on the bed of her dorm room, sobbing her heart out as Jen holds her. She’s holding in an endless stream of “I’m sorry”s, because she knows that Jen would just bat them off with her easy kind of kindness. Christine wants to apologize and have it _mean_ something.

Instead of letting that loose, she just shakes like a brittle leaf, desperately trying to find logical words for the visceral feelings that are so obvious to her. It’s like explaining the sensation of sight to someone who’s never experienced it. How could she even begin to explain that she’s a fundamentally bad person to someone who doesn’t have that simple instinct in her, that simple switch that makes these kinds of things obvious?

Words are hard. Christine just cries. 

“Christine, sweetie, what’s wrong? I need you to talk to me,” says Jen.

“I blew you off last night, is the thing. I declined your call because I was stupid and insecure and- and- I was- I’m just-’

“Christine? I need you to take a deep breath,” says Jen, and through her splintered eyes, Christine can see worry in Jen’s face. She must look like _shit_.

Christine follows the directions, she takes a deep breath in, a deep breath out. It slows things down a bit. Another deep breath, and then another. Things get a little bit clearer, but her mind is still screaming, still thrashing around like a mosh pit at a punk concert. 

“What’s wrong?” Jen asks for what might’ve been the millionth time that day.

“I blew- I blew you off on the phone because… because I’m just- I got really insecure, and I was thinking that- the situation reminded me of an ex, and it freaked me out, and thank you for being here for- for me throughout this whole thing but you really don’t need to be here if you- if you d-don’t want to be, that’s alright-”

“I’m not leaving. You looked like you were gonna swallow your tongue for a second, there,” says Jen, like her staying is just the obvious conclusion.

“But… you don’t _have to_ ,” stresses Christine, feeling the words come a little bit more smoothly than before. A strange sort of bland exhaustion is slowly taking over her.

“I know I don’t have to. I’ll stay,” says Jen, simply and with nothing but love. 

Christine dives towards her in a hug, probably so suddenly and forcefully that Jen would’ve been knocked over if not for the bed beneath them. 

They hug- or more accurately, they embrace. It’s intense and tight and frightfully odd, if only because despite everything that had just happened, to Christine, it feels a little bit like a beginning. She doesn’t know if she deserves another one, but she’s not going to turn it down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back babey

**Author's Note:**

> thsnk you for reading this! Beecharmer is honestly my favorite thing that I've ever written so i needed to write its sequel. So please comment/kudos/subscribe, and if you want, follow me on tumblr @thesubtextmachine, where I take requests and prompts! Can't wait to continue this!


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